Facultad de Ciencias Forestales y Recursos Naturales de la Universidad Austral de Chile

The Facultad de Ciencias Forestales y Recursos Naturales of the Universidad Austral de Chile has 5,400 hectares for field trips and research and more than 2,000 m2 of its own laboratories distributed across nine forest properties that support teaching and research.

The faculty is one of the founding faculties of the Universidad Austral de Chile in 1954, the Faculty is located on the Campus Isla Teja of the Universidad Austral de Chile, in the city of Valdivia which enjoys a privileged location.

The proximity of the forest and its associated ecosystems allows our students to learn in the field the knowledge for its proper management and protection.

90% of its professors hold a doctorate and its students have a wide range of exchange opportunities abroad.

Arboretum

Property managed by the Centro Experimental Forestal (CEFOR)

It is a collection of living, exotic and native species, today totaling around 400 woody species of exotic origin and 450 native species, spread over 27 hectares and complemented by 29.5 hectares of recovering Valdivian rainforest

Today it totals 64 hectares dedicated mainly to education and recreation. While the main beneficiaries are the students of the Faculty, it is also being used by other degrees, both scientific and humanities, and school-level students. The Escuelas de Pregrado use the Arboretum mainly for teaching basic sciences such as Botany, Wildlife, Ecology, Soils and Forest Resources.

The area allows access to the general public interested in learning about tree species and nature conservation in a peri-urban park, 10 minutes from the university campus.

CEFOR​ Centro Experimental Forestal

The Centro Experimental Forestal was created as an initiative of the teaching staff of the Facultad de Ciencias Forestales y Recursos Naturales of the Universidad Austral de Chile, in 1967.  Its main objective as a Bosque Escuela is to support the educational work of the Faculty, research and experimentation in the forestry field.

Later, other properties were added, now forming a heritage of 4,100 hectares distributed across 9 properties dedicated to forestry activity.

Raulí Nursery Facilities: raulí plants were observed as part of the project “Development of Propagation Systems for the Operational Scaling of Raulí Genetic Material”, started in 2011 with the objective of developing tools to efficiently multiply good quality raulí genetic material. The professor in charge of this project is Dr. Fernando Droppelmann.

Dendrochronology and Global Change Laboratory

It makes contributions to the highest level research, to undergraduate and graduate education, as well as services for the control of forestry legislation, and for studies of forest dynamics. Given the number and quality of research and other activities carried out, this unit is recognized as the principal Dendrochronology Laboratory of Chile.

Among the main research are:

• Development of the longest tree-ring width chronology in the Southern Hemisphere, spanning 5666 years.
• Reconstruction of temperatures for the last 3622 years, which showed that alerce ( Fitzroya cupressoides ) is the second longest-lived species in the world (behind Pinus longeva , USA, which reaches 4500 years)
• Creation of a network of lenga ( Nothofagus pumilio ) chronologies from the Talca mountain range to Isla de Navarino, showing that in Chilean Patagonia an increase in temperature has been recorded in recent decades, as a result of global climate change.
• Generation of a network of alerce chronologies throughout its distribution, in pioneering work together with researchers from Argentina.
• Abundant production of studies to understand the effects of climate change in south-central Chile integrating tree-ring width records, Glacier fluctuation records and historical documents.
• Monitoring and dating of illegal alerce logging.
• Substantive contributions to the study of disturbance events such as fires, earthquakes, landslides, volcanism or major human interventions, which help to know and understand our environmental history.
• Climatic and vegetation reconstruction of southern Chile for the last 1000 years, based on pollen records, lake-accumulated sediments (stratigraphy) and tree rings.

It is generating ring-width chronologies of Guaytecas cypress (Pilgerodendron uviferum) and cordillera cypress (Austrocedrus Chilensis ) to reconstruct river flows, in order to understand their behavior and predict water availability between the VII and XI regions.

The laboratory maintains close ties and conducts joint research with counterpart laboratories at CRICYT in Mendoza, Argentina, Universidad de Arizona in United States and Universidad de Western Ontario, Canada.

Geomatics Laboratory

It is responsible for developing and applying Geographic Information System (SIG), Global Positioning System (GPS) and Remote Sensor technology as support tools for territorial planning and natural resource management. This laboratory has state-of-the-art equipment for digital processing of georeferenced information.

Forest Products Laboratory Workshop

The Forest Products Laboratory is a broad unit, and practical complement to the work areas of Forest Products and Processes, in its teaching, research and extension dimensions. Currently the laboratory is made up of a series of experimental units: wood anatomy, quality control, industrial processes and wood chemistry.

Forest Nutrition and Soils Laboratory

It has the necessary equipment to perform chemical and physical analysis of soils, plants, fertilizers and water. Since 1998 it has been accredited by the Comisión de Normalización y Acreditación under the Sociedad Chilena de la Ciencia del Suelo and recognized by SAG – INDAP for soil and foliar analysis.

Silvoagricultural Biotechnology Laboratory

Development of research related to tissue culture of forest species and molecular genetics in the agricultural and forestry area. In micropropagation it is currently focused on generating protocols to rejuvenate and multiply adult trees, while in the area of molecular genetics it focuses on the use and development of molecular markers for studies of plant variability and genetic traceability. The head of this laboratory is Fernando Droppelmann.

Surfaces Laboratory

The laboratory, which is part of the Forest Products Laboratory, has state-of-the-art equipment such as a laser confocal microscope. The head of this laboratory is ProfessorAlfredo Aguilera. 

Drying Laboratory

It is part of the Forest Products Laboratory.

During the #rutansqe in Valdivia we were accompanied by Loreto Rojas (UACh Journalist), together with her we visited the Dendrochronology and Global Change laboratory and the tour was led by professional Emilio Cuq, on the visit to the Geomatics laboratory the tour was led by forestry engineer Jorge Moya. During the visit to the CEFOR and raulí nursery facilities, Angélica Tocol and Jessie Jaramillo took part in the recording.